White Bean and Vegetable Cream Soup

I put "white bean soup" on our meal plan one week. (I put a lot of soup on our meal plan that week since I was in the clutches of the so called Polar Vortex when I drew it up. But it ended up being abnormally warm the rest of the week.) When I went to make dinner I didn't have a corresponding recipe so this kind of happened. I was  inspired by a recipe in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian White Beans, Tuscan Style in which the beans are seasoned simply with garlic, sage, and black pepper. Mr. H liked it so I thought I'd share the recipe--it's like the ham and potato soup from September except without the ham and potatoes.

I wasn't planning to blog this so my photo is the
left over bit of soup that I ended up having for lunch.
So good, even left over.

White Bean and Vegetable Cream Soup

1 qt. vegetable broth (1qt water + vegetable better than bullion)
1 chopped onion
4 diced carrots
1 c. diced celery (one or two stalks)
1 c. frozen green peas
1 c. dried great northern beans, soaked and drained (or two cans drained beans)
1 t pepper
1 t sage

5 T butter or vegetable oil
5 T all purpose flour
2 c. milk

Combine the first group of ingredients in a stockpot. Bring to a boil. Then simmer for an hour or until beans are tender.

Melt butter or heat oil in a saucepan. Whisk in the flour and cook stirring constantly for two minutes. Slowly whisk in milk and cook for 5 minutes until thick. Stir the milk mixture into the the soup and mix thoroughly.

Note: In soups I like my veggies to be really mushy if you don't like that cook the beans by themselves first for 40 minutes and add the veggies for the remaining 20 minutes. Or use canned beans and just cook everything for 20 minutes. You can use any combination of vegetables you'd like I'd try to keep it to about 5 cups of diced vegetables. I'll likely try using olive oil (I used butter this time) and adding in some garlic next time. Also, I think spinach would be really good in this.

The White Beans, Tuscan Style from Bitmann's
How to Cook Everything Vegetarian
with fresh bread and diced sweet tomatoes